fuzzyspork | Myshuno! Prompt: A grand feast. (Reply)

Prompt: A grand feast. (from

biglenny)
Rating: Everyone.
Word Count: 760
Notes: From my Egyptian legacy. You saw this character's name in a Myshuno prompt I wrote last year. :)

-----------------------

Itet placed the tray down on the mat and lowered herself cross-legged across from the man who calls her wife. She picked up her bowl of “peasant beer” and gulped in a large mouthful, grimacing at the harsh flavor and having to swallow whole a particularly large chunk of slimy, half fermented bread. But she was thirsty from sweating over a hot cooking fire half the day, so she gulped again.

“A grand feast!” The man who calls her wife exclaimed cheerily, as he used a piece of stale flat bread to scoop up a portion and stuff it into his mouth.

Itet looked down at the “feast”. It consisted of a boiled fish that could have easily been something you’d see a cat carrying down the street, having been tossed out of a fisherman’s cart because it was too small. Maybe if her husband was a fisherman they would have the luxury of fresh fish every day. But as the wife of a brick maker, Itet was lucky just to be able to afford even this half rotten minnow.

She had tried to disguise the fact that the fish was only fit for the rubbish heap by putting the juice and rind from half a dozen lemons in the poaching water. The lemons did little to cover the off-putting odor, but when eating it your mouth puckered so thoroughly that your tongue couldn’t taste anything else for the shock. The sad excuse of a fish was accompanied by a few droopy leeks, two small onions, and it was all sitting on a bed of lentils that were nearly inedible because Itet had let the water boil away from the pot before she realized they were burning.

“Fit for a king, I tell you.” The man smiled at her and pushed more into his mouth. Itet felt her lips draw into a disgusted sneer and had to raise her bowl of beer to disguise the expression. He was always giving her compliments like this when he was obviously really making fun of her, and besides, he had no idea what a real feast was!

Itet’s mind wandered back to the pharaoh’s Sed Festival last year. She had only just had her shaving day, so it was the first palace feast she’d been allowed to attend as an adult. She remembered how she’d clapped and laughed at the sight of one hundred servants parading in with huge, gold trays on their heads, piled high with food. There was so much to choose from that Itet had to use two plates!

The fish dishes ranged from huge, whole smoked perch that took two servants to carry; to succulent filets of catfish encrusted with crushed pine nuts and fried in oil until they were golden brown; to the tartares of sweet, delicate white fish sliced so thinly to be nearly see through, topped with little mounds of fish roe in bright oranges and deep yellows like tiny salty jewels.

There were many other meats, too. Suckling pigs, slow roasted on a spit until the skin was so crispy it crunched when you bit it and the meat so juicy and tender it practically melted in your mouth. There were beer braised goat haunches, fried calf livers, stews made of rich, gamey gazelle, and so many different varieties of fowl Itet could not name them all! There was her favorite though; fragrant herb roasted duck served in bowls to catch the rendered fat that Itet greedily soaked up with bits of bread.

And the breads! There must have been at least forty varieties that paraded by. Dense, hearty loaves made with dark grains and crusted with seeds, small round loaves that were so light and so airy inside as to almost not need chewing at all, tender flat breads fried in olive oil that were almost a meal on their own, and gooey sweet rolls that were stuffed with dates and nuts, and dripping with honey.

There were trays piled with crunchy raw onions, sliced melons, celery stalks, roasted garlic heads, pomegranates, dried figs, and plump grapes. Bowls mounded with shelled walnuts, tart green olives, radishes, chick pea mash, lentils, boiled pigeon eggs, salty cheese curds, and . . .

Itet lowered her bowl of lumpy beer and looked at the long-dead fish that was staring back at her with its clouded eye. A sob caught in her throat and she excused herself in a croaky voice. Not noticing that the man who calls her wife was looking at her with great sadness and compassion in his eyes.